Insulting The Green And The Crescent
First Cameron Insults, Now UK Media Disfigures Our Flag
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—It should be abundantly clear that the British government and media have commenced a campaign against Pakistan both at the diplomatic and propaganda levels. Prime Minister David Cameron fired the first salvo deliberately choosing India so as to have the proper impact in Pakistan. Our state, seeming to wallow in abuse at the hands of the White Man, pussyfooted around these abusive remarks and shamefully President Zardari continued with his private visit to the UK while the Foreign Office woke up only days later to summon the British High Commissioner - when it realised the public outcry was getting stronger. Not that any of this mattered since the British Prime Minister was totally unrepentant and, just to make sure the Pakistanis got the point, he reiterated that he meant what he had said and was neither going to take his words back or express any regret over them. Now where does Foreign Minister Qureshi stand, given how he insisted the Cameron remarks were a mere “slip of the tongue”?
Following Cameron, The Independent (clearly not so independent of UK government links!) newspaper has now seen fit to distort the Pakistani flag in a way that clearly insults the nation. Would they dare to do something like this to the Indian flag? This is a repeat of the blasphemous cartoons targeting Islam in the absurd claims of “freedom of expression”, only this time Pakistan is the target. Everyone knows the national flag symbolises the nation and the British media, by disfiguring the flag, has assaulted the state and nation of Pakistan. How many more insults will our leaders compel us to bear? Is there no end to how much abuse we are meant to take in the post-9/11 era?
